Team report on the Sounders FC 3-0 loss to Rosenborg — notes and quotes

Seattle Sounders FC Lineup (4-4-2): Kasey Keller (Chris Eylander 46); James Riley (Zach Scott 60, Tyrone Marshall (Patrick Ianni 46), Jhon Kennedy Hurtado (Jamel Wallace 60), Tyson Wahl (Leo Gonzalez 60); Sanna Nyassi (David Estrada 46), Osvaldo Alonso (Stephen King 60), Peter Vagenas (Nathan Sturgis 46), Lamar Neagle (Rayner 46); Freddie Ljungberg (Roger Levesque 46), Fredy Montero (Tye Pardido 46).
Throw-ins: Two scarf-wearing Sounders FC season ticket holders made the trip to La Manga. Also attending the match was the club’s new broadcaster, Arlo White. Left winger Steve Zakuani, who underwent offseason shoulder surgery, has not been cleared to play in matches and was unavailable. The others not in uniform were defender Taylor Graham and midfielder Michael Fucito.Postgame Quotes – Sigi Schmid, Sounders FC Coach(overall assessment of the game)
Obviously they’re a good team and for us it’s good to play games against opponents of that quality. It gives us chance to take a measure of where we’re at. In fairness to our team, the worst you are, generally, when you travel like the trip that we made is two days in and that’s today. They’re a quality that is going to be in the Champions League next year and I thought they played well. The early goal certainly helped them. Outside of that I thought we had some moments in the game, but we have away some bad goals.(on what positives he saw)
You always take some positives away from a game. I thought Nate Sturgis came in and played very well in the second half for us. I thought Kasey was good in goal. I thought Freddie Ljungberg played well and was busy enough for us. Sanna Nyassi had some moments. Certainly his speed presents problems for the opposition. His decision making still needs to improve. I thought Stephen King came in and played well. I also thought Roger Levesque came in and played very well in the second half. So I was pleased with those guys.(on the effect of the weather conditions)
The weather’s the same for both teams. We’re both playing in the wind and the rain, so we both had to deal with that and adjust to that. I think some of our guys’ choice of footwear wasn’t good. You’ve got to wear studs when you’re playing on a field like that. Our guys being guys that play in the States, they always seem to not want to wear studs; they want to wear molded whenever possible. Overall, I thought even with the weather we dealt with it well. I thought we had moments in the game where he got chances. We were around the goal for sure. Perdido had a chance where he almost scored. I don’t know if Montero was offside on the one. It was certainly close. But I didn’t think we embarrassed ourselves, but certainly the measure of the game they were the better team.